


hold me (in this wild, wild world)

by sparxwrites



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Body Worship, F/M, Foreplay, Intimacy, Kissing, Mentions of past injury, Oral Sex, Perc'ahlia Festival of Happiness, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 09:21:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8157145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: “This one?” asked Vex, thoughtfully, tracing a finger over a small starburst of a scar at Percy’s shoulder. She’d seen marks like it before – a stab wound, of some kind, most likely – but they were usually larger. This one was small, a delicate silvery circle of scar tissue that intrigued her. “Yes. This one. Tell me a story, Percival, darling.”
(In which Percy and Vex get a rare evening to spend in bed together, and decide to spend it becoming acquainted with each other's scars... and bodies.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyOfSnakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfSnakes/gifts).



“This one?” asked Vex, thoughtfully, tracing a finger over a small starburst of a scar at Percy’s shoulder. She’d seen marks like it before – a stab wound, of some kind, most likely – but they were usually larger. This one was small, a delicate silvery circle of scar tissue that intrigued her. “Yes. This one. Tell me a story, Percival, darling.”

Taking advantage of a rare moment when no one was dying, the world did not urgently need saving, and nothing was on fire, Percy and Vex had decided to spend the evening lying in bed. In Percy’s bed, in Scanlan’s incredibly convenient mansion, without any clothes on, to be more specific about things.

It was unusual that they got a chance to do this, to simply _be_ without having to hurry. Most of their adventures in bed were hurried things, stolen while they had the chance, or tempered by the exhaustion of a day of fighting and the siren-song promise of sleep. Today, though… today, they had _hours_ , practically all the time in the world, and Vex was determined to make the most of it. Was determined that she would learn every inch of Percy, scars and all, and that he would do the same for her.

“Ah.” Percy’s lips twisted for a moment, something almost sad flickering in his eyes as he peered at the mark she was idly touching. “That one is, unfortunately, part of Anna’s handiwork.” He sighed, quietly. “Quite a lot of them are, I’m afraid… There’s not much of a story to it. Or, rather, it’s a story best kept for another time, when I’m capable of telling it all.”

Vex frowned a little, fingers stilling where they were pressed warm against the rise and fall of Percy’s chest. That hadn’t been part of the plan. This little exercise was supposed to be about learning each other’s bodies, their marks and histories, not about dredging up old nightmares that should have been laid to rest long ago. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Percy, gently. His fingers caught under her chin, tilting her head up enough for him to lean up from the bed and kiss her. Technically, he was cheating – no kisses until the game was over, that had been the agreement – but she wasn’t inclined to argue with him over the soft, chaste brush of chapped lips against hers. “Really. You weren’t to know. And besides, she’s dead and gone, and you’re here. I’m fairly sure that counts as me winning, in the end.”

Vex hummed, pulling away with a small smile. “That _is_ true,” she agreed, rubbing at the scar with the pad of one thumb. It was old enough to be a soft pink, almost invisible against Percy’s pale skin, the only real clue to its existence the raised bump of keloided scar tissue in the middle – but she could tell that, when it had been made, it must have been deep and painful. “Having me in your bed _definitely_ counts as winning, if I do say so myself.”

Rather than dwelling on unpleasant topics, she pressed a kiss to the clear skin just below the mark, and let her hand skate downwards over Percy’s chest. He was so covered in scars – mostly from his adventures before Vox Machina, and their abundance healing potions and spells – that his skin was a constant up-down of bumps and divots against her fingertips. The occasional patches of smoothness were few and far between.

“Hmmm… this one,” she decided, eventually, letting her fingers stop on another scar just below his ribs and shifting down his body until her lips were parallel with it. Whereas the others across his chest were mostly short, thin, raised things, this one was long and slightly puckered, engraved rather than embossed. “Unless it’s another from Ripley, in which case it doesn’t count, and I’ll pick another. I’m not wasting two of my three stories on that old hag.”

This time, though, Percy laughed, shaking his head in amusement.

“That? Oh, no, that one was… good grief, I’d almost forgotten about that.” He peered down at his own ribs, at the long, thin line of silvery purple drawn across them just above the softness of his stomach. “That one is a reminder of my own stupidity.”

“Oh?” She watched him trace two absent fingers across the mark, the gesture thoughtful, almost reverent. After a moment, she leant in, licking a wet stripe across his knuckles and laughing as he jerked his hand away with a yelp of surprise. “Percival de Rolo admitting to being stupid? Now _that’s_ a story I _definitely_ have to hear.”

Percy huffed out a soft breath at her antics, eyes both warm with affection and almost overwhelming in the _intensity_ they always got when she took him to bed. “My brother Julius and I, we used to spar sometimes, when I was younger – training swords and the like, under the supervision of our father or an instructor. It’s one of those things you’re expected to do, as a noble…”

He lost his words, and his train of thought for a moment, as Vex dragged the flat of her tongue along the mark. “Go on,” she said, wickedly, eyes dancing with teasing amusement as she pulled away and took in the shine of her own saliva against Percy’s skin. “Finish the story.”

“Ah. Yes. Well.” Percy tore his eyes away from her and inhaled deeply, staring up at the ceiling as he felt a single finger begin to trace the outside edges of the old wound. She was uncannily good at distracting him when she set her mind to it, and it drove him mad. “Being young and stupid, we thought it’d be awfully clever and exciting if we snuck out one night and tried it with real swords. Proper bladed weapons.”

“Oh dear.” Vex nipped at the skin just above the scar, and then carried on, lightly biting her way up Percy’s chest until she caught one peaked nipple between her teeth. Gazing up at him through her lashes, lips curved into the most terribly self-satisfied smile, she was gratified to see he’d flushed pink – and flushed darker still when she gave the sensitive flesh in her mouth a brief tug before releasing it, his neck and chest and ears all gone red as well. “How silly of you.”

“In- indeed,” Percy breathed, still fighting to keep his eyes on the ceiling instead of the she-devil having her way with his body. He was entirely sure that, if he looked, he’d lose all sense of propriety and self-control, and flip her over and have his way with her there and then.

As much as he was sure she would enjoy that _just_ as much as he would, he’d also agreed to play this little game of hers ‘til the end – and he was a man of his word.

“I could have gone to a healer I- I suppose,” he said, brain functioning a little better now it was only Vex’s lips on his skin rather than his teeth, ghosting down his ribs again to the thin, smooth scar at the top of his stomach. “But I felt so stupid, and Julius was so distressed, and we didn’t want to tell anyone… So we stole some salve from mother’s dresser, and fresh linen from the cupboard, and took care of it ourselves. It wasn’t a bad wound, really, as it turns out. We were terribly melodramatic about the whole thing.”

“You, melodramatic?” said Vex, with a laugh. She continued her slow slide down his body, trailing fingers over his skin in search of the final scar to demand a story of, as she talked. She watched him, though, carefully, enjoying noting the places that made him twitch and shiver when brushed by archery-calloused fingertips. “Perish the thought.”

The noise of indignance he’d intended to make was swallowed up in a pleased sigh when she kissed his stomach on the way down, lips gentle against the slight softness of it. He’d never been particularly good at even _pretending_ anger towards her, let alone maintaining that pretense, and it looked like tonight was to be no different.

Much to Percy simultaneous despair and delight, the final mark Vex chose was a welt a few inches above his knee, towards the outer side of the thigh. Unlike the other two, this mark was a dark red-purple, puckered, the skin around it reddened and warped. “This one,” she decided, pressing a finger to it, curiously, testing the odd, rough-shiny texture of it. “Tell me about this one.”

“That one’s rather unexciting,” said Percy, struggling to keep his voice even as she pressed her lips to the burn and then slid them open, laving her tongue across his skin. The nerves in the scar were mostly dead, but the skin around it felt almost hypersensitive by comparison, and the wet warmth of her mouth was almost too much. “An accident in the workshop, hot metal on skin… That was maybe three, four months before I met all of you, actually. I didn’t have the money for a healer, then, nor the level-headedness to even consider trying to find one.”

Vex winced in sympathy, but didn’t pull away. “Ouch,” she murmured, nose wrinkled – and then, after a half-moment’s consideration, shifted her mouth slightly further up his thigh and bit down.

Percy cried out as her teeth dug in, a sharp sound shocked out of him that was far more arousal than discomfort. “Gods!” he managed, when the surprise had faded a little, leaving only the low throb of a slow-forming bruise and the memory of arousal like lightning down his spine. “Gods, Vex’ahlia, give a man some _warning_ first.”

“You love it,” she murmured, kissing the faint mark she’d left against the meat of his leg, tracing a finger around the edge of it. She nuzzled against his inner thigh until his breathing turned too-fast and ragged, and grinned. “See? Don’t try and deny it, darling.”

Percy looked to be in no fit state to deny _anything_ , entirely too distracted by Vex’s proximity to his arousal. She was _right there_ , mouth mere inches from where he wanted it, _needed_ it – he was half-hard already, just from the roaming touch of her fingers and her lips against his skin. 

“Vex, _please_ -” he groaned, head tossed back against the pillows and fingers tangled in the sheets to stop him grabbing at her hair as he so desperately wanted to do. She had a way of breaking him down like nothing else- _no-one else_ \- could, slipping past all his attempts at self-control until it felt like she’d lit a fire under his skin. “Gods, don’t tease, I need-”

“Don’t be selfish,” murmured Vex against his skin, grinning as every brush of her lips made his leg twitch. “I know what you need. But you’re going to have to be patient, darling, I’m afraid. We’re only half-way through, after all…”

She pressed her mouth to the long-healed burn one last time as a parting gift, kissing her way round the edges of it in slow, deliberate presses, before finally pulling away. Above her, Percy watched her every movement, blue eyes turned wide and dark with arousal.

“ _Right_ ,” he growled, the moment her lips had left her skin. He reached down and grabbed her under the armpits, grinning at her squeak of surprise and slight, ticklish squirm, pulling her up his body until they were nose to nose. It took an _incredible_ amount of self-control not to drag her into a kiss right there, with her mouth panting inches from his, her eyes dark and glittering and staring into his – but, with a herculean effort of will, he managed it. “My turn, my dear.”

Flipping them over, so she was the one against the bed and he the one straddling her hips, drew another squeal from her. The noise swiftly dissolved into a giggle – and then into a groan when his mouth found the large scar on her chest, just below her collarbones but still above the slight swell of her breasts. “Percy,” she murmured, head tipped back, chest arched up into the touch of his mouth. “Percy, you _know_ how I got that one.”

“I do,” agreed Percy. The scar was the colour of death, bleached-bone white and stark against the summer-warm brown of her skin. Unnatural. He kissed all the way along it, end to end, slow and careful. “But I thought it might be a good place to start. Think of this as… an apology, if you prefer.”

His breath was warm against her skin, his mouth warmer still – and when he reached the tip of the scar closest to the hollow of her throat and slid his lips open in a wet kiss, she couldn’t help but moan. “You don’t- _oh_ \- need to apologise, darling,” she managed, despite the way her eyelids were fluttering at the faintest scrape of teeth. “You never have. You _know_ that.”

“Are you complaining?” asked Percy in a quiet, arousal-rough rumble as he pulled away, licking his lips and admiring the reddish mark he’d raised.

“ _Hells_ no,” breathed Vex, grinning at him with a flash of white teeth. Her cheeks were flushed – but, unlike Percy, the blush didn’t crawl any lower than that. She lifted a hand to tousle through his hair, rubbing the pads of her fingers against his scalp with just the slightest hint of nails, and made a pleased sound at the way he leant into her touch. “Please, _do_ continue.”

Percy dipped his head obediently, leaning down to brush his lips against her skin once more. “As my lady desires,” he murmured, a hint of amusement to the clipped-formal edges of his words as he covered her collarbones in light butterfly kisses.

“Oh, your lady _very_ much- _Percival_ , darling,” she gasped, when the kisses began to drop lower and lower, down her chest and over the curve of one breast until he could latch his mouth around a nipple. “That is _not_ a- _cheater_!” She shuddered, whole body arching as he laved the roughness of her tongue over the sensitive skin, and sent sparks skittering through her all the way down to her toes.

Percy just grinned against her, nipping at the softness of her breast gently and relishing in the way she twitched at the sudden, bright burst of sensation. “Payback,” he said, evenly, blowing cool air over the saliva-wet skin, and watching Vex squirm against the sharpness of the cold with a wide smile.

“Terrible boy,” she murmured – though Percy could almost _smell_ her excitement now, was sure if he dropped a hand between her legs she’d be wet and ready and more than willing. Reaching up to flick the shell of his ear, by way of reprimand, she grinned back at him. “Get on with it, I want to fuck you silly already.”

“How presumptuous of you,” said Percy, absently, catching her hand in his own as she pulled it back, “to assume _I_ will be the one being fucked silly. I was rather considering turning the tables for once, this time.”

Vex’s laugh in response to that was a high, beautiful thing. He’d heard it so many times before, and yet it stole his breath away anew every time he heard it. It was one of the many, many things Percival loved about her, her laugh – and he allowed himself a moment to luxuriate in it, kissing the tip of each of her fingers in turn as it tapered off into giggles.

“This one, then,” he said, when she was finally done, pressing his lips to a ruler-straight, thin mark across the inside of her right wrist. Unlike the mark of the Raven Queen’s curse, this scar was a warm, pinkish colour, less stark against her dark skin. Still noticeable, though, enough so that it had caught his eye several times before. He’d never quite found the moment to ask about it, until now. “How did you get this one?”

“That one’s old,” said Vex, almost thoughtfully, watching him with half-hooded eyes from her position against the pillows. The ribbon had come off the end of her braid, at some point during this little game of theirs, and her hair was slowly unplaiting itself every time she shifted, spreading out around her head like a halo. “Vax and I got it into our heads as children that we should be blood brothers, so we… we stole one of mother’s cooking knives, actually. I’m not sure she ever knew we did that… Vax has a matching scar, you know – on his left, though, rather than his right.”

Percy paused in his ministrations to squint up at her, brows creased in confusion. “But… you’re twins,” he said, faintly bemused. “You already share blood. Why…?”

“We were children!” Vex’s cheeks had darkened slightly in embarrassment, and she couldn’t quite meet Percy’s eye. “It was a silly little thing we’d heard about from some of the local human children children, and it sounded so very grown up at the time. A pact, between the two of us…”

She trailed off, eyes going a little distant as she remembered the two of them crouched in the corner of their bedroom hours past their bedtime, hands clasped to each others forearms and bleeding wrists pressed together. It had seemed so solemn, at the time, something almost like a ritual – but looking back on it, she had the urge to laugh at how silly they’d been, how naïve.

“I’m so glad I’m not the only one that made poor choices with siblings as a child,” muttered Percy, pressing a kiss to the thin line. He got a gentle cuff around the head for his teasing, but didn’t pull his lips away, kissing up to the sensitive skin of Vex’s inner elbow. 

He lingered there for as long as he dared, given how impatiently Vex was shifting against the bed. Her heartbeat against his lips was slow and steady, and oddly intimate. He didn’t want to move, in that moment – wanted to stay there, forever, his cheek against her skin, the rise and fall of her naked chest by his own bare shoulder. Wanted the moment to stretch on for an eternity, perfect in its completeness.

Eventually, though, he pulled away in search of a third and final scar.

He found it, in the form of an interesting half-circle of marks on her upper thigh – puncture wounds, long-healed into darkish, dimpled scars. “I think I know where these are from,” he murmured, breath ghosting over her skin as he exhaled unevenly. This close, he _could_ smell her, the wet heat of her and the salt-sharp musk of her arousal. “But I’d like you to tell me, nonetheless.”

“That-” Vex started, and then gasped at the scrape of Percy’s teeth over the scar, thighs instinctively squeezing together as a heavy throb of arousal sent heat washing through her. When her muscles relaxed again, legs parting a little, the upper insides of her thighs were faintly shiny with slick. “That one was from Trinket. When he was just a little baby, though. His mouth’s far bigger than that now.”

Percy hummed, thoughtfully, leaving a trail of kisses that bisected the curved line of bite marks and then carried on down to her inner thigh. “As I suspected,” he murmured. “There has to be more to the story than that, though.” His lips curved into a wicked grin against her skin. “Pray, do tell ”

“He wasn’t- oh _god_ s.” Percy had abandoned all pretense at paying attention to the scar, had sealed his lips around the sensitive flesh of her thigh and _sucked_ , hard enough to raise a blood-bright bruise. It was all Vex could do to keep speaking, to stop her squirming becoming outright writhing. “He wasn’t always as well behaved as he- _Percy_ \- is now, and- and he didn’t know any better-”

Words failed her entirely as Percy pulled back to admire the rising mark he’d left, crimson against brown, and then leant back in again to lick across it. The drag of his tongue close to where she needed it most, the heat of his breath against her aching cunt, the sight of his head between her legs… it was entirely too much.

Vex made the executive decision that finishing her story could wait until later. That the game was over. “Percy, darling-” she gasped, breathless and impatient, head tipped back into the pillows to show the long line of her throat, spine arched in a vain attempt to cant her hips up towards his touch. “ _Please_ \- if you’d just-”

It was all the encouragement he needed.

His mouth slid sideways across her thigh, hot and wet, leaving a trail of slick saliva and half-hickey bruises in its wake. He nudged her thighs a little wider for better access when he reached her cunt, and didn’t bother with teasing. They’d both been on the edge far too long for that. 

He licked into her for a few moments to taste her on his tongue, to luxuriate in the feel of her trying to grind down against his open mouth and clench around nothing. Eventually, though, he took pity and slipped two fingers into her. She started rocking against them almost instantly, hips twitching against the sheets as she tried to get them deeper, more, Percy, _please_ -

When he obliged, pushing a third finger in and sinking them as deep as he could manage into the wet heat of her cunt, she moaned loudly enough that he was fairly sure the whole _mansion_ had heard. Grinning, he crooked his fingers, leant in to drag the rough flat of his tongue across her swollen clit, and took the utmost delight in listening to her fall apart above him.

It took less than a minute for her to come, crying out shamelessly and clamping down around his fingers, grabbing at his hair to hold him in place as she rode out her orgasm against his mouth and tongue. When she finally collapsed back against the bed, boneless and panting, he made to pull away – only to stop when the grip on his hair tightened, a raising prickling almost-pain across his scalp that made his breathing hitch.

“Darling,” said Vex, voice shaky – she was still clenching around him, intermittently, muscles spasming as she rode out the aftershocks of her orgasm – but still with an undeniably sly note of teasing to it, “did I say you could stop?”

Percy up at her, lower face shiny with her slick, hair a sweaty mess from her grip. “No,” he said, licking his lips slow and deliberate, watching the way Vex’s eyes dropped heavy-lidded at the swipe of his tongue. He loved how she tasted, and she loved _knowing_ he loved how she tasted. It was something Percy took cheerful and willful advantage of, upon occasion. “No, you didn’t.”

For a moment, her eyes roamed over his face, carefully reading his expression. When she found only the quiet, easy delight he always wore when they did this, and the slightest hint of amusement, she grinned.

“Well, then,” she said, as imperiously as she could manage. She shifted into a more comfortable, languid sprawl across the bed, hooking one leg over his shoulder to allow him easier access to the space between her thighs. “ _Do_ carry on. I’ll let you know when you can stop.”

“As you wish,” he agreed, easily, pressing a gentle kiss against the trembling muscle of her inner thigh. Obediently, he dipped back down, pressed his mouth once more to where she was slick and open for him – and let himself get lost in the easy rhythm of the task, and the beautiful noises his beautiful, _beautiful_ Vex’ahlia made.

**Author's Note:**

> for @infanttree on tumblr – my contribution to the perc’ahlia festival of happiness! sorry it’s a little late compared to most of the fics, this week’s been a bit of a Mess... thank you for giving me so many fantastic prompts, though! i’m super weak for body worship, so i went with “body worship, learning each other's scars and skin” in the end. the title is from bastille’s “warmth”.
> 
> come find me @sparxwrites on tumblr, if you feel like it.


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